


Here's Truth

by Catchclaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, Episode: s06e18 Frontierland, M/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:30:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People don’t come to Sunrise, Wyoming to make friends. They come to get away from the ones they already have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When the dust settled, the sheriff was alone. 

Six-shooter, sure. Dead Phoenix at his feet. Ok. But no Sam, no fucking clue as to why watching the clock on the courthouse strike twelve felt final, once and for all.

He waited there in the street for a while. Alone, only by rights, because the rest of the town was still terrified: of him, of the thing he'd just smoked, of each other. 

He stood stock still, yelling his brother's name like it was the only word he could remember. Hell, at that point, maybe it was. 

His head felt cloudy, like a June day with a storm that wouldn’t break. Like something was wrong. Like he was. 

But he couldn’t remember why.

There was just Sunrise. An afternoon in March in the year of Our Lord 18 and 61.

"Well, shit," he whispered finally, all shouted out at last.

And that was the smartest damn thing he said all day.

**

He spent the first couple a days, after, at the bottom of a whiskey well. Took to a room above the saloon and locked the door against all comers, 'cept for the boy bearing the next bottle. 

He was adrift, the sheriff, but that weren’t what got 'em drinkin', no. It was the not knowing why he felt so outta place, like a boat got lost in a crick. That was what made him cringe. Made him do his damn well best to drown himself, to flow on over to the other side a the bank, ya know. The one on the other side of life.

At first, Louis, the barkeep, made allowances, seeing as how the sheriff had managed to kill off Elias Finch once and for damn well all, and even Louis could see the advantage in having customers who weren't afraid of getting killed by a hellbeast on the way to their evening beer. So he gave the sheriff the benefit of the doubt and a couple bottles of rotgut and left him alone at that.

Sheriff, though, he couldn't quite manage to put himself under. Not for lack of tryin', mind you. Something in him, they say, wanted to live too bad to give in that easy—no matter how much the rest a him wanted to be gone.

But after two days, even Louis got worried. Sent the boy up with some water and the kid came back down yelling, screaming about the sheriff bein' dead when no, all he was was passed out cold. He'd puked everywhere and torn shit up and generally made a goddamn mess of his whole person, but he was still livin' when they dumped him on the doc’s front porch. Which put Doc out but good.

"Damn it," he groaned, shoving a hand through his hair. "Louis. What've I told you about takin' in strays?" He booted the sheriff's leg outta spite, and Sheriff moaned. Rolled over on the planks and started sucking up sawdust. 

"C'mon, Doc," Louis said, for he was not an unkind man. Unscrupulous, sometimes. But not unkind. "You can see he's hurtin.'"

Doc leaned down, careful not to get his nightdress in the puke. "Yeah, I can see it. Smell it, too. Just not so sure s'worth dragging me outta bed for, is all."

Louis sighed. Scrubbed his hands on his apron and took his last shot. "You're the best doc in two states, Lionel, and you know it. Any other doc, they wouldn't be worth pullin' outta sleep. But you? You can help this man. Free him from the chains of his own body."

Doc shook his head. "No need to go for the poetry, Louis. I'm gonna help 'em. Don't mean I gotta be happy about it." He stood up and stretched. "Now, I'm gonna get my pants on. You make yourself useful and put on some hot water. Gonna need some coffee for this shit."

"I got a bar to run!" Louis shouted up the stairs, his words bouncing off of Doc's back. "I ain't got time to play nurse!"

Doc didn't answer, which was his way of saying: _tough shit_.

**

The kid—cause that's what he was, Doc decided, an overgrown fucking child—he didn't really care for Doc's kind of medicine.

"What the hell!" he yelped when the first bucket a cold water hit his face. "Who the fuck are you?”

Second bucket shut him up, if only for a minute.

"Goddamn it!" the sheriff howled, trying to sit up and slip sliding all over the Doc's porch. 

Doc just stood there, waiting patient for his patient to sit still already. 

The kid yelled again and Doc kicked him in the shin.

"Enough!" he said, a little happier than he shoulda been, probably. "Y'aint hurt that bad, sheriff. No use screaming like a whore in church and wakin' up the whole damn town."

Kid sat up, blinking in the dark, that adrifting feeling washing back in quick. He looked down at himself—a wet, vomit-soaked cat—and shuddered. 

"Ugh," the sheriff moaned, elegant, and that's when Doc knew he was gonna go on livin.' Whether he wanted to or not.

"Yup," Doc said, "ugh is right, son. You're a goddamn mess, and you ain't goin' in my house dressed in that shit." He made for the door and let the lamp light hit the kid in the face, just to see him flinch. "Strip it off and chuck it all in the corner there. I'll have Clara burn it in the mornin.' Then scrub off with the water in this here bucket— and use some goddamn soap, mind— and get your ass inside. So's you don't shock the neighbors, right?"

He ambled in and went straight for the coffee. Was a good way through it, too, before he heard the kid curse and the tellin' slap of wet leather on wood. 

The kid took the sullenest sponge bath Doc had ever heard, splashing and grunting and cursing more than he was scrubbing, sounded like.

"Stubborn enough, ain't he?" Doc said, rhetorical. Poured himself another cup.

Sheriff stumbled in, still sick as a dog and none too clean, showin' his teeth and blushing from his head to his toes. 

Doc waved cheery from his desk, safe in the corner, and pointed at the blanket on the floor. "Don't worry. I see it all before. Wrap yourself up and let's see what I can do for what I'm sure is hell of a fucking hangover."

The kid grabbed his head, like he'd forgotten about the pain, and almost dropped his blanket.

Doc laughed, and the kid gave 'em the dirtiest look he'd had seen in ages, lookin' as murderous as a man can with no pants.

"You some kinda demon?" Sheriff growled. 

"Nah," Doc said easy. "Nothin' so fancy." He pointed at the cot propped up against the back wall.

"My surgery," he said. "Sir. I invite, nay, I demand, that you enter."

He banged up from his desk and took the kid by the shoulders. Steered Sheriff to the bed and bundled him in. More gentle than you woulda thought, Doc's hands, for all a his bark. 

"Now," he said, reaching for a bowl. "Drink."

Sheriff wanted to protest, to fight. Anything to get this damn fool to leave him be. Let him get on with his dyin' in private. But, well. He just didn't have the strength. 

So he drank as fast as he could, his face twistin' under the Doc's concoction, and came up sputtering.

"What the hell was," he managed, his eyes closin' right quick.

Doc huffed and pushed the kid down. Tucked the officer of the law under mostly clean blankets and patted his head. "Sleep now. We'll discuss my medicinal prowess when ya wake up."

He turned down the lamps and settled himself behind his desk. Hunkered down right good for the night. 

Turned out the sheriff snored. 

"Figures," Doc snorted to no one in particular.

**

The clock'd come all the way back around to twelve and then again well on past by the time Sheriff woke up, but he was, much to his annoyance, none the worse for wear.

"Where the hell are my pants?!" he hollered.

Good thing was, Clara was there to hush him up, to get him fed and dressed, and he was downright presentable by the time Doc deigned to come down, scratching at a two day's beard.

"Sheriff!" he crowed, slappin' his handiwork on the back. "Nice to see you walking. Came close to buying your own pine box last night, you did."

Sheriff just glared and reached for more cornbread. "You expect me to say thanks?"

Doc dropped into the chair opposite and picked up his plate. "Hell no. Expect you to pay me for services rendered and then get the hell out of my house."

Sheriff's eyes got downright murderous. "I didn't ask for your help."

Doc looked right back, peaceful. "I know that. But I don't rightly care. You wanna shout, go yell at Louis at the saloon. He's the one who dragged your sorry ass in here."

Something in the kid's face, it flickered, and Doc almost felt sorry. Almost. 

"Right. The saloon."

"Yup," Doc said, munching on some questionable ham. "So, little tip for ya, son: next time you go tryin' to kill yourself, don't do it with so many people around." He grinned, greasy. "'Sides, surely you got better ways a doin' that, being a sheriff and all." He looked pointed at the kid's hip. "Though you didn't have your gun when Louis brought you in here. Ya may wanna look into that."

"Is everyone in this town a thieving bloodsucker?" Sherrif hissed. "Seriously. What is wrong with you people?"

Doc blinked, deliberate. Set his chair down careful and leaned close. "What is wrong, Sheriff, is what keeps you in business, right? So unless you wanna pick up and move on—which would be fine with the rest of us, I can tell you—I suggest you keep your moralizin' to yourself and drink your goddamn coffee."

He stood up before the kid could answer and grabbed his bag. Went forward for his hat and turned back, scowling for all he was worth.

"I don't care if you like me or not, son, but you sure as fuck better say thank you to Clara before you leave, or lawman or not, I'll tan your goddamn hide."

And say what you will about the sheriff: he did. Tipped his head to the lady, real nice, thanked her for her hospitality and refrained from saying mean things about Doc, which, to be fair, Clara coulda practically recited.

Still, she liked him, this kid. Thought he coulda stood another few days of decent meals and a clean bed, rather than shacking up at the goddamn saloon and she made sure to tell Doc all a that as soon as he got home. 

"Clara," he huffed, "he’s a grown man, babyface or not, and I ain't in a place to tell him what to do. If'n he wants to live like that, well, he's got a pretty gold star and a gun that says he can. I ain't gonna get involved."

Clara, though, she knew Doc better than that. Better than he knew himself, some days.

"Bullshit," she snorted. "You like him. I can tell. I ain't see you as happy as you were this mornin' in a long damn time, you know that?"

"Happy?" Doc huffed, not bothering to raise his head. "You mean, when the kid was cussin' me out and refusin' to pay his goddamn bill?"

Clara shoved the broom around his boots, just on principle. "You mean, the kid you let walk outta here without payin' some imaginary bill you made up 'cause he didn't sing you praises for saving his life?" She poked him hard with the broomstick and yeah, that got him lookin.' "You forget, Doc, I've seen you chase people down the goddamn street over a fifty-cent tooth pull, and here you, what, drugged the boy but good and kept him here overnight and, oh, stayed up into the wee hours watching him not die, and then you just let him walk out with only a kind word to me as his fare? Oh, no, Lionel. Don't even try to sell me that you-don't-like-him shit."

Doc crossed his arms and gave up his best growl. "You've got the worst mouth on a woman I ever heard."

"And you’ve known some real peaches, Doc."

"Oh for the love of—! Go home, Clara. I think you've done enough damage for the day, don't you?"

She slammed the broom against the wall and came right back firing. "Look. Why don't you try and look after him? He ain't got nobody, ya know. Heard that tree trunk of a man he was with? Done and skipped town. And you, you got that room at the back empty and I'd be happy to—"

Doc stood up, fuming, right ready to put an end to this bullshit revolt. "Oh _hell_ no. Stop right there. I ain't gonna—"

She narrowed her eyes at him, like a rattler right before you got bit. "Go ahead. Tell me how you ain't gonna. How ya don't even like 'em. How you wish he'd get the hell outta town."

"Yes!" Doc shouted, jumping up in spite of himself. "All a that! Now stop harassin' me. I got Mr. Choderin comin' at six and I've gotta get—"

Clara smiled at him, which was even scarier than her scowl. "Right. Ya keep tellin' yourself that, Doc. 'Case you forgot, though, the last person you were this much an ass about, hell. You almost married her."

Doc threw up his hands and damn if he didn't go purple. "Goddamn it! Get out of my house! Go home and run the shit outta your Annalise now, woman! Leave me be!"

He kept at it, kept yelling and waving his arms while Clara got her coat and pinned her hat. 

She was calm, see, 'cause she knew that she was right. Doc's theatrics proved it. Was only a matter a time, to her mind, before he got his head out of his ass and let himself care about something that was less than 80 proof.

She stood patient at the door until he had to stop and take a breath, his eyes crazed, his dark hair up and wild.

"You have a good night now, Doc," she said, sweet. "Your supper's on the stove." She opened the door and winked at him, saucy. "And you say hello to Sheriff for me when you see him."

The doc flung his cup at her head like a goddamn petulant child, but Clara was faster, made it out to the porch with nary a splash.

"Son of a bitch," she breathed. "Man's more stubborn than a granddaddy mule."

"I heard that!" Doc bellowed, banging his hand on the window. "Get the hell off my porch!"

**

At first, people didn’t know what to make of the sheriff.

Oh sure, he’d done killed that Finch man. The one with the nasty habit a not staying dead. And there was no denyin' that he was aces with a gun.

“Man’s a damn good shot," Mr. Robenson reported, just after Sheriff took out a couple a cattle thieves on his farm. "One bullet each, I tell ya. Dropped 'em cold."

And Sheriff was fair, too. Everybody appreciated that. Like when he caught Simon Baylor from the bank out gallivanting in the crick with Mrs. Armstrong—a fine lady with the best soprano in the church choir and also, apparently, an affinity for skinny dipping for men to whom she weren't married—Sheriff didn’t haul 'em to jail, arrest them for public indecency or some such.

“Although,” Mary Carney said, leaning confidential over the counter at the feed store, “indecent’s about the nicest thing one can say about old Baylor nekkid.”

No. Sheriff just asked them real polite if they wouldn’t mind putting some clothes on, please, because he’d had some complaints about the noise, seeing as how it was near on midnight and all. Turned his back all gentleman-like and insisted on escorting them back to town. 

But even then, he was equitable. Didn’t walk the two through the streets like perverts or criminals all, but left them just on the edge of things, right outside Porter’s Stable.

“Go on straight home, now,” he said, his voice a rough kinda smile. “And next time you all want to, uh, have some time alone, best not to do it quite so close to the city limits, you know what I mean.”

See? A gentleman. And nobody woulda been the wiser, neither, had Mary Carney not been burning the midnight oil to balance that month’s ledger and see the whole thing from her window.

So it wasn’t his sheriff-ing that gave people pause. It was more his reticence, his general lack of engaging anybody in conversation beyond the how-you-do variety.

Some folks, those of the less kindly ilk, said he was tetched. Others were just as sure he'd been in one of the wars—maybe down in Texas, with the Comanches. Or some of the settler fightin’ out in Bloody Kansas—and ended up haunted, you know. Torn up inside on a account of what he’d seen. But honestly, nobody was rightly sure, ‘cause it just didn’t seem polite, asking a man what was wrong with him. Especially one who seemed all right in all the ways that counted: polite when he had to be and steel when he didn’t. Forthright in his justice, and sure, he kept to himself a good part a the time, but that wasn’t that unusual in Sunrise.

Like Louis used to say: “People don’t come out here to make friends. They come ta get away from the ones they already have.”

So with all that, it weren't more than a month before Sheriff had most everybody's respect, the not-so quiet confidence of the people, the ones that'd buy him a drink or two and ply him with a slap on the back before he'd run back up to his room like a monk. Didn’t take whores, him, and didn’t drink, neither, not away from the bar.

"Now that Winchester," Chester Bennett sighed one night in April, draped heavy over his beer. "Ya know what? He’s alright."

The rest of the room nodded, and yeah, then it were pretty much set.

Sheriff was there to stay.

'Course, not ever'body was so keen on the guy.

The judge's widow was still pissed, seein' as the old coot had died right under Sheriff's nose.

"But he wasn't sheriff then," Mrs. Barley insisted. "Betty. You're bein' unreasonable. Unchristian, practically." All to no avail.

And the whores, Darla and Emily, they kept a wide berth, too.

"He ain't interested," Darla'd say loud, whenever their paths crossed over whiskey or cards. "Guessin' he don't like women, what?"

It worked every time: Sheriff'd blush like a schoolboy and bolt, lock himself up with his Bible or his fist or whatever it was he did in his room alone. Louis tried to shush 'em, really did, but nobody else in town paid his girls any mind. Least nothing they said, anyway.

And then, of course, there was Doc.

Doc, who staged a one-man crusade to push the kid outta town by sheer orneriness alone. 

First, he stayed a week out of the saloon after he saved the ungrateful fucker’s life. Refused to go in for fear of seeing the kid, though he’d never've told it was fear, exactly.

"That son of a bitch ain’t around, is he?" he hissed to Louis his first day back.

Louis just rolled his eyes and reached for the whiskey.

"You still pissed at me for bringing him in ta you, Doc? That it? You been avoidin' my fine establishment all this time over _that_?"

Doc made his favorite stool and slid up, easy. "Maybe. You sure as hell deserved it."

A glass slammed down next to his hand. He looked up and saw Louis grinning and trying to look contrite.

"On the house," he said, all magnanimous and shit. "With my compliments."

Doc was a lotta things, but stupid wasn't one. He drank.

"All right," he said, twisting the glass in his hand. "It's a start."

"Oh for christ's sake," Louis sighed. "You're not gettin' the whole bottle. Don't even try that shit with me."

Doc smirked and pointed. "Just pour. I'll tell you when to stop."

But he was only three shots into Louis' guilt before Sheriff wandered in, covered in dust and damn near permanent righteousness and fuck if Doc could stomach drink with that kinda man in the place.

He slammed back the last and made for the door. Made sure to shove right past the bastard as he went, bumped his arm but good, and Sheriff? 

He looked right through Doc, like he wasn't even there.

Now a course, Sheriff did that sometimes: got a little ghosty and didn’t quite see people when they spoke. Most everybody had learned that all ya had to do was speak again, or tap the man on his sleeve, and he’d come right back to Earth, those green eyes fixed quick on your face.

But Doc? He wasn’t most. And he took it personal.

"Fuck me," he snarled to the horses outside. "What a son of a _bitch_."

The horses, they just rolled their eyes right on with everybody else.

A few days later, though, Doc gave the kid another chance. Not of his own accord, mind you. No. See, Clara, she heard about the no-fight at the saloon and came at him like a nest full a bees.

"Damn it," she shouted, waving his breakfast around. "Act like you got a lick of sense for once in your damn life, Doc! That boy ain't done nothin' to you."

She made him feel bad enough about it—threatened his porridge with enough vigor—that he waved the white flag. If only to rescue his vittles.

"Fine, _fine_ , Clara, jesus," he hissed. "I'll talk to the boy next time I see him. All right? Now may I please eat that shit before you chuck it all over the wall?"

He got his chance sooner than he woulda liked.

Sunday next, he was driving back from the Wallace place one county over. Papa Wallace, the damn fool, had shot himself in the leg yet again, and Doc was grouchy as hell from doin' stitches and from having to use alcohol for strictly medicinal purposes. ‘S almost painful for him, that.

So he almost passed Sheriff right by, almost didn't see the kid struggling to walk—walk!—up the Jackson Road into town. 

When it clicked, who the dirty straggler was, Doc slowed Seraphim down to a slow trot. Gritted his teeth and raised his hat.

"Sheriff!" he called, twistin' his mouth to smile. "Good sir. Might I offer you a ride into town? Awful long walk ya got there in this rain."

The kid turned, water sloughing off his brim, and frowned. "No thanks, Doc. I'm doin' just fine here on my own."

Doc sputtered, genuine surprised, because who the fuck would choose sucking through the mud over a proper ride in the rain? Then he remembered, recalled even, who it was he was dealing with. 

Right. 

He nodded, brisk, and kicked Seraphim as quick as he could to full stride. Made a point of running her hooves straight through the mud outta spite and splattered Sherrif's britches but good.

It was satisfying as hell, sure, but Doc's problem stood. Because Sheriff, he wasn’t going anywhere. And Doc’d be damned if he was. He’d lived in Sunrise longer than anyplace else in his life and while it may not a been the happiest a places for him—not filled of sweet memories all—it was his goddamn home long before jackass McGee showed up and put on the badge and the gun.

Now the sheriff, truth be told, was kinda bewildered by the doc’s behavior. See, he knew he’d been difficult, hadn’t been the most gracious of guests, maybe, but he _had_ been dragged there not of his own accord, after all. And for all a Doc’s bluster, his blue peacock blaze, there was part a Sheriff that saw something kindred in the man. As if they had something in common. 

When he looked at Doc, Sheriff saw a little bit of drift in him, too.

Now Doc was a part of town, sure. Everybody knew him. Hell, he’d probably seen half the town naked, or at least in some sorta state of undress; kinda came along with the job, Sheriff figured. For all that embarrassment, though, people seemed to like him all right, or pay him no mind at all. 

But Sheriff, he had a sense that somethin’ wasn’t quite right with Doc. The man was a little off, it seemed like, and Sheriff sure as hell knew how that felt.

There weren’t a lotta people in town that Sheriff went out of his way to talk to. To take an interest in, even. But Doc, that lucky son of a gun, he was one.

So Sheriff decided to do a little digging on his own. You know, being the law and all. But there weren’t nothing covert about his investigating.

"Louis," he said, one afternoon early in May. "I done something to Doc?"

Louis pulled another couple of pints, thinkin' that one over, then slid down to Sheriff’s end of the bar.

"It’s like this,” he sighed. "Doc, he is one ornery son of a bitch, and once you get on his bad side, there ain't no tellin' how long he'll be wishing you dead." He made his face up in sympathy, but Sheriff? 

He just tipped his hat back and laughed, which sorta startled Louis. Finding a man's hate hilarious and all.

Sheriff saw his confusion and held up a hand, tryin' to get his breath back.

"No, it's just—" he started, still grinning like a goddamn jackal. "I had lots a people not like me. That ain't nothing new. But having a guy hate my guts outta sheer spite—for no damn good reason at all—that's a new one, Louis. Brand new."

"Alright," Louis said, uncertain, ‘cause that was the most words he’d ever heard come out of the sheriff’s mouth at once, and damn if he hadn't spent all of ‘em on Doc.

"That said," Sheriff mused, pitching in over his glass. "He does look kinda familiar, some days. Maybe we've run across each other before. Maybe I pissed him off once, right good, and he ain't yet forgotten." He showed his teeth again, and damn, Louis thought, did he look young. "Must not of been anything good if I don't remember him, though."

Chester Bennett, from the dry-goods store, he'd been eavesdropping like a cat in an open window, and he couldn't help but pounce at that.

"You know him in the army, meybe?" he drawled. "Doc, he were out in the wilds a long time. I think he were in Texas. Or one a the Dakotas. You been out them ways?"

Sheriff blinked, trying to ignore the drifty feeling that shot through him. "I don't— No. No, I ain’t."

"Oh," Chester hummed, warmin' to his subject. The man did love an audience. "Well, this woulda been years back, right? When did Doc give up the soldiering, Louis? What? Least six, seven years ago, uh?"

Louis tapped his teeth. "Got out in '55, I think? Or '56. I dunno." He shrugged. "Think he were in some a them Indian Wars, but I ain't certain. Doc, he don't like ta talk about it."

"True," Chester rumbled, fumbling with his cigar. "He don't. But I ain't met many army men that do, be honest. Especially when they seen some fightin', which I bet ya a dollar Doc done, yup. Well enough." 

“’Yeah,” Louis said. “’Sides, he weren’t much of a talker a’tall when he first shuffled his way in ta town.” He snorted. “Hell, believe it or not, man was practically a hermit.”

The sheriff laughed. “What, Doc? Come on.”

Chester pointed his beer. “Naw, naw, it’s true, Sheriff. Kept to himself, real quiet like. Didn’t like ta mix with anybody, hereabouts, ‘cept in his surgery.”

Sheriff looked at both of ‘em askance. “We talking about the same man here, fellas? The one about yea high, blue eyes, hair blacker than the devil’s heart—that one?”

Louis grinned and slapped the sheriff on the shoulder. “Sure enough was.”

“Like I said,” Chester said, waving his cigar. “He done seen some shit in the army, Sheriff. It were all over his face clear as day, back then.”

“Uh huh,” Sheriff said, skeptical. “So to what do we owe this pariah’s conversion? What brought Doc outta the wilderness, eh?”

Chester and Louis, they sighed. One in time with the other. Almost melodic, like.

“Meghan,” they breathed, the word a curse or a blessing. It were hard for the sheriff to tell.

“Um,” he said, wanting to ask more, but Chester—as distracted as he was by the passin’ memory a that hellfire woman and her blasted gorgeous, well, everything— he weren’t quite done with the sheriff yet.

"So,” he said long, his eyes on Sheriff eagle sharp. “You were a soldier, too, huh. Like Doc. Can see it in yur face.” He snorted. “Heh. Bet yur daddy was a fighter, too." He nodded wise, liquor certain.

Sheriff met his gaze and smiled, wary. "It shows that bad, huh?"

He stood up so quick he startled himself by it. Flipped off the stool and slid up the stairs without another word. 

"Yup," Chester said, mouth full of smoke. "It do."

**

So Sheriff might not have wanted to think talk about his own history, right. Or think about how foggy it was, how much he couldn’t remember. But now he was sure as hell curious about Doc’s. Along with what in the hell it had to do with Doc unjustly hatin’ his guts.

Next time Doc shot through the doors of the saloon, then, wind-whipped and smellin' of summer flowers, Sheriff was ready for him. Had his own plan of attack. Because now, he was full-on curious. And curiosity and lawmen don't mix nice. Made him antsy, then. The not knowin.'

So he done aimed to find out.

The saloon was humming even louder than usual, ‘cause talk of the war was everywhere, men shouting about Lincoln and Manassas and how quick the Feds would fall to their knees.

“They’ll be done by summer’s end,” Simon Baylor told anybody who’d listen. “Take Lincoln right outta the White House, they will. Frog-march him down to Richmond strapped to the back a Lee’s horse.”

“Oh bullshit,” Mary Carney snorted, reaching for another card. “That’s just your Georgia talkin’, Simon. A couple of lucky wins don’t an army make.”

“Lucky?!” Simon honked, much to the table’s amusement. “Madam. You may be well versed in salescraft, in barter and trade, but your ignorance of military affairs is apparent. General Lee is the finest soldier Virginia has ever produced, and may I remind you that that list also includes—”

“We playin’ goddamn cards here or not?” Chester Bennett bellowed, his straight flush burning a hole in his hand. 

The table exploded again, got the whole place shakin,’ so it weren't any wonder that Doc didn’t see the sheriff at first. Nah, Doc, he stormed up to the bar all bluster and charm, teasing Emily with a wink and slapping the new judge on the back. In fact, he looked down right personable and Sheriff found himself agape. He hadn't realized Doc had any sorta personality outside of drink and a bucket a water to the face.

He chewed on that for a minute, watching, then tossed his cards down, delightin' everybody at the table, 'cause damn if the sheriff couldn't take almost anyone for his money, his boots, his horse even before they got a look at their hand. 

Doc was too busy cuttin' up and downing the first two fingers of the night to see the sheriff moseyin’ over. Hell, the kid moved so quick that Doc didn't even get time to swear before Sheriff was on the stool next to him, smiling in his face and offering to pay for the next round.

"Fuck me," Doc muttered, his happy givin' in to a scowl.

The kid grinned. "I'll take that as a yes," he said, waving Louis over, and what was Doc supposed to do after that?

He was a lotta things, Doc, but stupid wasn't one. He drank.

Sheriff shot his hat back and settled up straight. "I owe you an apology," he said, scratchy with cigars and drink. "For the way I acted toward ya, when you were kind enough to take care a me. I got no excuse, neither, other than I'm stubborn as hell, and it ain't easy for me to admit when I got somebody wrong."

Doc eyed him over the free whiskey and didn't say a word. Let his blues do the talking instead.

But Sheriff, he just smiled again, the son of a bitch. 

"Can we start over?" he said, all reasonable like. Stuck out his hand. "I'm Dean Winchester. Nice ta meet you."

"Hmph," Doc said, shaking. "I'm Doc."

Sheriff laughed. "I got that," he said. "You got a name, Doc?"

Louis leaned over the taps. "It's Lionel."

"Shut up, Louis!" 

Louis smirked. "That's his middle name, anyway. His given name's even worse, believe it or not. It's—"

Doc banged his glass on the goddamn bar. " _Louis_! Shut yer fucking trap already!"

Sheriff—Dean—he was grinning so hard it looked like it hurt. Which Doc sorta hoped it did. 

"Worse than Lionel? Jesus. Your parents hate you or what, man?"

"Fuck you both," Doc grumbled, curling into his glass. "Let me drink in peace."

They just laughed, the bastards, but Sheriff kept buying him drinks, so Doc let himself get over it, a little. Not their fault his pappy got fancy with the naming when "John" or "Tom" woulda done just fine. 'Sides, there were worse things in the world than having a funny name or two. Like being stuck drinking with a man he couldn't stand, didn't wanna talk to, goddamn it, much less listen.

Still. Man did have enough sense to keep buyin.' 

Afterwhile, the bar got overrun with the boys from the mine, the coal dust thick as thieves, and Doc let himself be tugged away, over to a table and down. Sheriff kept being real charitable, too. Askin' Louis bring 'em something from the kitchen which, hell, Doc was sure the fuck for. Made drinking a damn sight easier, having something in his stomach besides.

Sheriff, though, weren't as impressed by the vittles.

"Hell," he sighed, poking at his plate. "You got it a damn sight better at home, Doc, don't ya?"

"Hmm?" Doc said, chasing beans around his plate.

"Your wife. What's her name? Clara? She's a freaking amazing cook, compared to this—whatever it is."

Doc snorted cornbread up his nose. "Clara?" he wheezed. "Dean. Please god. She's not my wife."

Sheriff just stared, watched him choke like a stopped-up flue for a minute. "She's not your—? Oh! She like a housekeeper or something?"

Doc waved for a glass and drank, hard. "Or something. She's an old friend. Takes care of my surgery and things. Cooks like a demon, sure, but only outta spite. I mean, she's sure if she didn't cook fer me, I'd live offa hardtack and saltpork."

"And beer!" Louis called from the bar, unhelpful.

"Yes, fuck. And beer."

Dean frowned at him. "Hardtack. Right. I heard you was in the army."

Doc made a face. "You heard, huh? Damn, I wonder from whom." He leaned his head back and roared: "Maybe our fair neighborhood bartend, eh, who cannot keep his fucking mouth shut!"

Louis banged two beers on the roundtop with a huff. "Doc, it ain't no secret. Stop acting like I done pulled down your drawers."

Doc shot him some daggers and got his fist around his beer. Glared at Sheriff and damn well dared him to speak.

Kid couldn't take a hint.

"So'd you fight some Indians?” he said. 

Doc sighed. "Not 'some Indians', Dean. The Sioux. Fine people. Lovely people, even. But your Army of the US of A, she don't always see it that way." He pushed his hands through his hair, scattering petals over their plates. "So when she called, I went."

He could feel the sheriff eying him, careful. "You didn't wanna fight," Dean said, finally.

"That, sir, is putting it mildly," Doc said. He looked to get away from that subject then, quick. "So!" he barked, sorta jovial. "What about you, Sheriff? Enough about my former exploits. Where you from?"

The kid, he blushed, unexpected. Looked real young beneath his badge.

"I'm—I'm not from around here," he stuttered.

Doc snorted. "No shit. You swept in here, killed that Finch creep final, and half the old justice in this town ended up dead. No, I think it's safe to say you ain't from here."

Sheriff was all the way red now. Tried to hide it behind his beer.

"Anyway," Doc said, speculative. "You was with another dude when you came in town, yeah? Some grizzly bear of a guy, I heard. So where'd he go? You kill him, too?"

And that was a step too far. The sheriff, he jumped up, snarling, and Doc sorta noticed his gun. 

"Don't you talk about Sam that way," Sheriff hissed, not seeing how he was drawing all eyes in the place, which really, Doc thought, tipped back with a smile, was not how a lawman should be acting in any circumstances. 'Specially when he was still pretty new in town. 

He patted the table. "Now, now, son. Just sit the fuck down already. You're making a scene. I meant you no offense. You or this Sam guy, all right?"

Dean looked around, got the picture, ok, and sat the fuck down.

"That's better," Doc hummed. Aimin' to keep things friendly. "So he's not dead."

Dean's head snapped up, met Doc's gaze, and he looked like a dog that'd been kicked, achin’ and sad.

 _Fuck_ , Doc thought. So much easier to hate the guy than to feel sorry.

Now he was a lotta things, Doc, but stupid wasn't one. He drank. Took a minute to think, holding that pitiful stare.

"You wanna talk about it?" he said, casual. The tone that'd made Meghan goddamn crazy. She'd called it his fake _I-give-a-shit voice_ , which was sorta unfair. Not inaccurate, mind you. But once and awhile, Doc did mean it. It's just—it was hard for people to tell when, sometimes.

Sheriff sighed. Drank the rest of his beer before he answered. 

"'S my brother," he said, soft. "Sam. And he's not dead, as far as I know. He just—he's gone."

"Moved on, ya mean?" 

Dean blinked a little too hard. "Yeah, something like that. Went on without me, I guess." 

Doc didn't know what to think. Didn't have enough facts for a proper diagnosis. So he kept prodding, searching, like a good doctor should.

"So that's why you were so torn up, huh?" he said, fumbling for some bedside manner. "Y'all have a fight? Or he just up and leave?"

Dean laughed, more hollow than not. "Nah, no fight. Just left. Didn't know he was going. Though we were going together, you know? But—"

His eyes drifted away and Doc sat back, considering. Racking up the symptoms.

"So. You lost him. And now you're here, and ya kinda don't know what to do with yourself." He grinned, a little rakish, and reached out. Patted the kid's arm. "Even though you got this pretty gold star that says you should."

"Yeah," Sheriff sighed. "Exactly."

He looked at Doc again, and goddamn, Doc realized. The kid was sorta pretty.

Maybe he'd had enough drink for one night, if'n his mind was going that way. Not that he beat himself up about it, appreciatin' beauty like that. One thing he'd learned, taught himself through fire and blood, was that ya had to seize beautiful whenever you found it, no matter how strange it seemed at the time.

Those bluebells at the Sioux camp, dancin' in the sunshine as men bled to death in between.

Meghan, dark hair and red cheeks and a fury that almost matched his own.

And Sheriff, too, in the right light.

Still. He knew not ever'body felt the same, saw beauty as something that had to be grabbed. Had to be held tight. 

He talked a lotta shit when he was drunk, Doc, but that was one thing he'd never tell, one part a himself that he kept locked up, right.

So.

He met the kid's nice blasted eyes. "Well," he said. "Don't know that there's much for it, Dean. Other than you go on livin.' Do the sherrif-ing, if that's what ya want. And if not—you move on, too. No use wastin' your life waiting for somebody who ain't coming back."

Now that, that mighta been a bit more than Doc shoulda shared, right then, but he was drunk enough not to care. That much.

'Sides, Sheriff seemed to appreciate it. Leaned across the table and gave Doc a little smile. "Sounds like you're speakin' from experience, huh?"

"Maybe."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "But you don't wanna talk about it. That it?"

"Suffice it to say,” Doc said with an extravagant sigh. “My story ain't far from your own, 'cept mine involves a woman, not a brother, and she had the balls to leave my ass the night before our wedding, so. How about that?"

Which was much more than he shoulda said, than he'd ever said to anybody about Meghan, but what'd ya know? 

The sky didn't fall, in the talkin.'

In fact, Dean looked sorta impressed. "The night before, huh? Damn. That's cold." He grinned, all glittery green, the bastard. "But better than the night after, right? 'Cause somebody might take that as, you know, a statement about your manliness or some shit."

Doc punched his shoulder. "Ha ha, Sheriff. You're just hi-fucking-larious, ya know that?"

Dean snickered. "And you're drunker than a skunk, Doc."

Doc sat up straight, in a way he was sure said dignified. "I am not. I'm fine."

"The fuck you are."

"Hey! Who's the doctor here? Me. And in my educated opinion, I am sober as a judge, son."

Dean leaned back and rattled their jungle of glasses. "Awesome. So stand up."

Doc scowled. "What?"

"You heard me. Stand the fuck up, oh sober one."

Doc was gonna ignore the little shit, really he was, but then Louis started hooting from behind the bar, got the miners in on it, too, and damn if he was gonna back down in front of them.

"Fine," he hissed, shoving back. "Watch me.”

He got his feet under him, two on the floor, and was nothin’ but confident. He knew this, knew his own body well enough, damn it.

So he leaned up, put all his weight on his legs—

And went face first into the table.

A humiliation made worse, mind you, not by the derisive shouts from his fellow patrons, no. But by Dean's hands on his elbow, his shoulder, the gentle ease with which the kid lifted him upright and took his weight. And the sheriff was laughing, sure, howling along with ever'body else, but when his eyes met Doc's, they were concerned. Caring, even, and Doc just didn't know what to make of that.

"'M fine," he slurred into Dean's shoulder.

"Yeah, you're freaking awesome," Sheriff huffed. 

"Fuck off," Doc managed as the kid snagged his waist. Pushed himself hard into Doc's side and started to walk and no. Fucking _hell_ , no way was he gonna let himself be dragged home by the goddamn sheriff with the pretty eyes and not unpleasant frame and—

They were out of the doors before he could fight it, and halfway down the sidewalk before his brain caught up to the shiver a interest in his dick and that was just not right.

"Not right," he said in Dean's ear. "'S not."

He could feel Dean snickering against him. "Uh huh. Physician, heal thyself, right?"

Doc shook his head. "Don't need healin.' Need a drink."

"Oh, that is the one thing you sure as hell do not need, my friend," Dean said. He shifted a little, and Doc could feel the points of the bastard's star bite into his back.

"Hrrnn," Doc managed, fighting his legs' best efforts to crumble and his dick’s equal opposite to rise.

"Yeah, hrnn is right, dude," Sheriff panted. "Damn. You been eatin' rocks? You don't look heavy, but man, it's like dragging a fucking anchor."

"Can leave me, you. Can make it the rest of the way m’self."

"Tempting. But I think we're here."

Doc opened his eyes—hadn't realized they were closed, right—and saw his blessed, beaten porch. "Yeah," he croaked. "Is it. House. Leave me here."

Dean ignored him and pushed open the door. 

Inside, it was dark as fuck and Doc stumbled across something right away, got to flailin’ and fell hard into the sheriff, who just sighed and held on tight.

"Fuck, Doc. Don't kill yourself now I got you here in one piece."

Doc could feel Dean turning them in the dark, looking.

"Where's your bed?"

"Stairs," Doc huffed. "Up the."

Dean laughed, low hum in his ear.

"Yeah, that ain't happening. C'mon. Cot for you."

Eyes still closed or just goddamn dark, Doc wasn't sure. Didn't matter, anyway. Pillow was soft, light or no, and his boots made the same noise hittin' the floor as they always did. Even if it was the sheriff who'd pulled 'em off.

"Night, Sheriff," he mumbled. "Dean. Get the fuck outta my house."

He felt Dean laughing over his head, which was damn disconcerting. "How come every time I come in here, you try and throw me out?"

"Because you're an annoying little shit," Doc tried to snarl, but no more than noise came out. So he leaned up to try again, but there was some idiot's head in the way, some idiot with scruff and lips that were probably soft. 

All that beauty, right there for him to touch.

What was he supposed to do?

Exactly. ‘S what he did.

Tilted his head hard and kissed the son of a bitch, who, it's worth notin', didn't push him away or squawk or shout. Nah. Just got a fist in Doc's shirt and kissed him right back.

For a minute, anyway. Not near long enough, 'cause the next thing Doc knew, he was pushed flat in his pillow, one hand holding him down and that damn well happy mouth much too far away.

"Go to sleep," Dean rumbled. “Doc. Go on.”

“Naw,” Doc said, finding the words in his mouth. “Castiel.”

He heard the kid huff. “What’s that?”

“Castiel. ‘S my name. M’ given one.”

He heard Dean rustlin,’ felt that palm press fast against his chest.

“Well. Castiel, then. Go to sleep, damn you.”

"Hmph," Doc managed, and passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun got up the next morning, like it always did.

And Doc, he did, too. Much as he mighta resisted. 

But when he groaned his way to the kitchen—to _his_ kitchen, damn it—the kid was still there.

"I told you to get outta my house, Dean," he growled. "You stop speaking English and not tell me?"

Sheriff, for his part, he didn’t say a word. Just pushed a cup a coffee into Doc's hand and fucking _gleamed_ , way the hell too happy for that early in the morning. But before Doc could protest, the kid leaned over and kissed him. May've even slipped in a little tongue, Doc wasn't for certain, because it was over before his brain caught up to his lips.

"Um," he mumbled, his mouth heavy with sleep and something much more pleasant besides.

"Mornin,'" Dean said. "Just wanted to make sure you woke up 'fore I left. Got me a bucket a water there, though, just in case ya didn't." He grinned wicked. "Was gonna give you another ten minutes and then—"

"Mmm," Doc sighed, his eyes locked on the kid’s lips. "Dean. Come back here."

Sheriff danced away, put the kitchen table between them, and scooted for the door. It wasn't fair, using his fleetness like that, not when Doc was all weak in the knees.

Dean snagged his hat off the stand. "Adios," he called, one last wink besides. "You be good now."

"Fuck you good," Doc groaned, but Sheriff was already gone.

Now Doc did his best not to think about Dean for the rest of the day. Made it his mission, like.

It was harder than he thought.

He had to make a conscious effort, you know, not to zero back on the curve of Dean’s mouth, on the little hitch in his breath when he kissed Doc, the little sound that promised somethin’ more.

Doc shivered in remembering. Hell yes, more.

So it took all his concentration to keep the green at bay, to not think a the kid when he was helping Mrs. Battle birth her third son in four years, or stitching up Martin Goodrich’s ass where his Arabian had landed a hoof, or pouring chamomile tea down Annalise's throat under Clara's watchful eye— 

"I know what I'm doing, Clara!" he barked. "You don't get on outta my way, though, and let me treat your girl to rights, and she'll be the one looking after you, ya ken?"

Clara glared at him, fierce. Took a wee half-step outta the room. Still more in than out, but Doc knew a retreat when he saw one.

He turned back to Annalise and let the blue come all the way out of his eyes. Smiled real pretty into her face until she couldn't help but do in kind, no matter how poorly she were feeling.

"Now then," he said, soft. "Let me take your temperature again, sweet. And keep you mouth all the way closed this time, all right?"

The girl, she was all Clara in that light: long lines and brown eyes and a bit of the Plains tucked into the curve of her mouth. 

"But your momma don't listen to me near as good as you," Doc hummed. "We gotta work on that together, you and I. You think you can help her with that?"

Clara rumbled in the doorway, thunderstorm on the prairie. Made Annalise grin around the thermometer. 

Doc tapped her on the nose. "Ah. Mouth closed, miss. Don't make me take my kind words back now."

He got the girl to sleep, finally, and Clara dragged his ass out to the porch.

"It ain't typhoid," he said abrupt. "So stop worryin' about that."

Clara leaned against the front door and wouldn't meet his eye. That's how he knew how well on terrified she was. More than she'd let the girl see.

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Held on. 

They stood there for a minute, staring out into the street, watching the dust kick and the horses hiss and the sky drift on towards dark.

"You cry quieter than any woman I ever met," Doc said, afterwhile.

Clara snorted. "That a compliment?"

"No idea. But it's damned handy, I betcha, when you're somebody's mama." He sighed, gave her arm one last squeeze. "Annalise, she ain't your Charles, all right? It's ain't typhoid. She just got a bad cold, is all. Just the change in the seasons, woman. Nothing to get yourself tore up about."

"Yeah," Clara said heavy. "Yeah, I hear ya."

Doc grinned. "But you don't believe a damn word, that it?"

She smiled, the last of her tears gettin' caught in her lip. "Didn't say that."

"Didn't have to," he teased. "I know ya too well."

She leaned over, sudden, and kissed his cheek.

"Go the hell home, Doc. Leave us in peace."

So he walked, the dusk getting caught in his boots. Ignoring the lump in his throat.

Clara's Charlie, he'd died before Doc'd come to Sunrise. Hadn't been his doctoring—or lack of it, from what he'd heard tell—that'd killed the man. No. He'd gone from flash fever to pine box in less than 36 hours. _Typhoid_ , the old doc had told Clara. Nothin' to be done, once it dug in that deep. 

The girl didn't remember her daddy. Been too small when he died, and Doc thought that pained Clara more'n anything, that loss. A loss Annalise would never really understand.

Now Doc's own past weren't a subject he liked to dwell on. There weren't too much good it in that he could recall. 

To be true, most of it? He couldn't recall at all.

But for some reason, it was the child's loss he felt more acute than his own. 

An absent father. A child growing up not knowing where she come from, like. It'd make it harder for her, he thought, to figure out where she should be going. What her future might look like.

What story, whose story, she might want to tell.

Yeah, Doc was well on trapped in his own head then. As he trudged towards home in that grey gold light.

Truth be told, it was the first time that day that he really forgot about the kid. The sheriff.

So a course, it was the first time Dean popped up in his sights.

He was leaning slim on Doc's porch liked he owned the place, cocky and sure. Not studied a’tall. No. 

Even though it’d taken him five good minutes to figure it out, how to arrange himself like that. How to look his best for Doc, to be cool, when he saw the man who'd been hovering over him all day, it felt like. Whose eyes Sheriff coulda sworn he saw in every window he passed on his rounds, reflected in cut glass smudged and damn if his heart hadn't pounded every time.

Cas. Cas. Cas. It sounded like.

Round noontime, he’d gone on over to the stables. Talked to old man Porter about James, his oldest. About Sheriff's intention to make James his deputy, to give him a badge and a gun and bring him into justice, like.

The boy weren't a boy a'tall, near on 22, but Porter was particular, Sheriff knew, and he didn't want hurt feelings on any side. He was poaching one of Porter's best hands—reason enough for some men to spit and reach for their holster. 

So he tread light and spoke deferential and left with his new deputy in tow.

The good thing was, for Sheriff, the afternoon passed in a tizzy, bringing the boy—James—up to snuff on the law. 

"I've been readin,'" James said, serious, like he damn well said everything else. "As you suggested."

"Good," Sheriff said. "It'll make things easier for ya. Knowing the letter of the law. Means you won't have to think about it, wonderin' if what you're seeing or what somebody's yellin' about be legal or not. It ain't that complicated, right, but it don't hurt to know about it, anyhow." He thrust the broom out. "So sweep, my friend. And we'll talk about what you've been reading."

James did good, Sheriff thought, moving and talking at once. Doing while his brain was working without missing a beat, even as Sheriff fired question after question about outpost justice his way and kept feeding the kid supplies: a bucket and a handful of rags.

In the end, the jail was nigh on pristine and Sheriff were certain he'd found the right man for the job.

He pinned the star to James' vest and damn if the kid didn't light like a Christmas tree.

"Sir," he said, "Sheriff. Thank ya. This is a real honor to be workin' with you like this and I promise that I won't let you down, sir, or the town, and I'm—"

Sheriff laughed. Patted his deputy on the back and opened the front door. "Ok, kid. Ok. You get on home now. Be back here at 6 in the AM, all right?"

He watched James practically dance down the planked walkway, until the kid remembered himself— _his new station_ , Sheriff thought, amused—and started walking like a lawman should: deep hip swagger and shoulders back. Head high and one hand drifting casual at his hip.

And, bam.

It made Dean think of Sam, all of a sudden. That seriousness he saw in James. His utter determination to be right, to get it right, to meet ever'one of Dean's expectations.

He ducked inside, gasping, and his heart did a two-step.

He didn't think about Sam too often—had trained himself to know better—so when he slipped, let his brain run over there, it hurt like fucking hell.

Thing was, his memories of Sam were swimmy, had gotten sorta hazy the longer he'd lingered in Sunrise, 'till now most of it was just ache.

It scared Dean somethin' awful, that loss. He could feel it like a crater in his head, a big piece a him that was missing. 

The rest of his past was long gone, but he'd come ta terms with that.

But Sam, missin' Sam like that, was terrifying.

So he leaned his head against the wall and breathed until his heart settled down, snugged back behind his ribs again, and pushed Sammy Sammy Sam right outta his thoughts.

 _Castiel_ , his heart said then, impatient.

And, oh. Oh right.

Cas.

It didn’t make the hurt go away, that ache of Sam, but thinkin’ of Doc, of the stupid smile on his face the night before, grinning like a drunk-ass fox right after Dean’d kissed him. 

It put life back in him, Doc did.

So he washed his face and made his hat sit just right and moseyed on over to Doc’s. 

But Doc didn’t see him at first.

He looked sad, a thousand miles away even as he were close enough for Dean to touch.

So Sheriff dropped his pose and reached out. “Hey,” he said. “Doc. How do ya?”

Doc raised his head like he’d almost forgotten how. “Sheriff,” he mumbled. “Hey. Ya wanna drink?” 

They ended up in the back room of Doc’s house, the one to the back of the kitchen. Doc dug out an ancient bottle of rye from one of the half-dozen crates in there. Most of ‘em not even open.

“Pfft,” Doc said, batting dust out of his eyes. “It’s shit, I’m sure, but it’s all I got at present.”

“It’s fine,” Sheriff said, polite, because who was he to say no to another man’s liquor? And besides. It weren’t drinking he were really interested in doing, you know.

He made himself look away from Doc, at the knock in his brow where he were frowning at the goddamn bottle and squinted at the mess all around. Made the mistake of taking a step and tripped clean over a stack a newspapers.

“Jesus,” Dean hissed. “What is all this crap? You just move in here last week?”

“Ha ha,” Doc said, imperious. He dropped in a raggedy chair, open bottle clutched tight. “I see no need to waste labor, is all. I ain’t using this room. Not gonna hurt anybody to let this shit hold down the fort.”

Sheriff balanced his ass ginger on the edge of a crate. “I can’t believe Clara lets you keep it like this. Fuck. It’s like the woman’s worst nightmare in here.”

Doc took a breath. Poured two fingers worth and pushed the cup into the sheriff’s waiting hand. “There’s a reason, Dean, that the door is usually locked.” 

They drank for a while in peaceable enough silence. Even if it were more turpentine than rye.

“’Sides,” Doc said, sudden. “Clara thinks this oughta be yours. This room, I mean.”

Sheriff shot drink out his nose. Moved on to some eloquent spluttering.

Doc flung his arm out, expansive. “I guess she figures, well. I got this room. I ain’t using it. You’re getting leeched by that bartendin’ son-of-a-bitch for your room and fucking board. Ergo, I should be a friend, like, and offer it to ya.”

The kid got his legs back. Managed to even look skeptical. “And how do you feel about it? I mean, seein’ as how you usually do the opposite of whatever Clara says.”

“Well,” Doc sighed. “She’s been after me, oh, since the first night I saved your ass from dying, so. Maybe she’s just finally worn me down.”

Sheriff caught his eye and let a smile unwind, slow and lazy. Made the doc flush, the way he was lookin.’

“Oh,” Dean said, easing himself up. “Worn ya down, huh?”

“Um,” Doc said. “Yeah. Well. I guess.”

Sheriff took two steps and kinda loomed over Doc. Beautiful and strange. 

“Castiel,” Sheriff said, holding out his hand. “Come up here.” 

Doc sat still for a minute. Some part a him ready to fight. But those were green eyes up there, not brown, and a holster in his sights, not the sharp folds of Meghan’s best dress.

He set his cup down deliberate and stood up on his own, leaving Sheriff’s hand hanging.

“I don’t respond right well to that name,” he said, his voice a little breathy between ‘em.

"Really,” Dean hummed. “’Cause I seem to recall that ya shared that with me, your name, oh, right after you laid one on me, here.” Sheriff tapped his lips, drew Doc’s attention up straight, and Doc shoulda known the little fucker wouldn’t play fair.

Dean's hand, the one Doc had foolishly left adrift, it snapped out, caught him around the waist and snatched out his breath. The other, it slunk up unexpected and cradled Doc’s face, so gentle it made him squirm.

And those eyes, that green just pouring down into his face all lovely and happy and shit.

“Oh fuck it,” Doc groaned, and let himself be kissed.

They kicked up a lotta dust with that kissin.'

“So,” Sheriff panted after a while, ass flush against the wall. “You gonna offer me this room or what?”

Doc petted Dean’s neck and hummed, content. “Fine. You clean it out, buy yourself a bed, and ‘s yours.”

Sheriff shook his head and rolled his eyes but he opened up for Doc’s tongue again, just the same. 

**

Louis was sorry to see the sheriff go, on the one hand.

“That’s five dollars a week, regular, out the door,” he whined to Chester. “Not countin’ his time at the bar.”

“But on the other hand,” he told Darla, watching her pat on powder in the mirror. “It do mean less law in the place. More room for a different kinda clientele, ya know what I mean?”

Yeah, Louis was nothing if not one to seize an opportunity, be it strictly legal or no.

Clara, of course, was delighted. Doubly so, with Annalise on the mend.

“About goddamn time!” she bellowed at Doc, punching shape into the week’s bread. “What in the hell ya been waitin’ for, Lionel? The second coming?”

Doc scowled and marched past her for the broom. “The sheriff will, no doubt, find your hospitality overwhelming. Along with your voluminous profanity.”

“Hey, Clara,” Sheriff said, sticking his head around the corner. “May I have a bucket of fucking clean water, please? This floor ain’t seen daylight since sin.”

“A course, darlin’!” she trilled. “The pump’s right out back. And I bet there’s a bucket there, too.”

“Of course she likes you,” Doc huffed over supper. “Now she’s got someone else to boss around.”

Dean just grinned and passed him the peas. 

Now, neither of them was real big on talking about the past. ‘Specially since—for both of them, it seemed like—so much a that past was lost to them already. But what they did know, what they managed to remember, it started to come out, as these things do, in little fits and starts.

“She beat me at cards,” Doc said one Sunday evening in June, face smashed in his pillow.

Sheriff shook his head so hard he got crosseyed. "Do what now?"

"Meghan," Doc grunted, like it were the most obvious thing in the world. "That's how I met her. She beat me at cards."

Sheriff blinked and scooted up in the sheets. “Wait, Meghan? She the woman who run out on ya?”

“Yeah, ya idjit,” Doc huffed. “Who the fuck else would it be?”

The sheriff gave him this little smile, and Doc could practically hear the gears turning—which were worrisome. “You never said her name before, is all.”

“Uh huh. You wanna hear this or what?”

“No reason to get prickly. Jesus.” Sheriff reached out and patted Doc’s back. “Don’t get your feathers in a bunch, alright?"

“Hmph,” Doc said, resisting the urge to push up into the touch. “Well. So it were here in Sunrise, alright, some night in February or March when we were goin’ a little stir crazy with all the goddamn snow that just refused to fucking melt already and—”

He caught Sheriff’s grin in the corner of his eye. “Well. We was all antsy, you know.”

Sheriff chuckled. Ran his knuckles up Doc’s spine and let him keep rambling on.

“So this woman, Meghan, she come floatin’ over to our table all sweetness and light, and she asks Louis—he was dealin’ at the time—can she sit in, like. Says her pappy taught her how ta play, and she just wanted the practice, was all.” 

Dean snickered and Doc shot him a smile. “Yeah, exactly. We shoulda known better, right?”

“Damn straight,” Sheriff said. “But you buncha old goats, I bet you couldn’t help yourselves, huh?'

Doc wiggled in a way he hoped was officious. Even if he was naked. It got more a Dean’s hand on him, anyhow. “I weren’t no old goat then. What, five years ago, I was a young and virile thing, I’ll have you know.”

Sheriff winked at him in this way that made Doc’s insides a little too warm. So he pushed up on his elbows a tad and kept goin.’

“Anyway! So she beats the pants off the whole damn table, right, one right after the other, but she take a special interest in cleaning me out. ‘Till I lost so bad I cain’t pay up. And then she leans over the table, right towards me, all rosy and hot and more wicked than any devil, and she says: ‘You take me out, Doc, on a date proper, and I’ll more than forgive your debt.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And who was I to say no to that?”

The sheriff whistled, the sound right over Doc’s nose. “I’m guessin’ you didn’t.”

Doc leaned over. Let his eyes fix on Dean’s mouth. “I sure as hell,” he breathed, “did not.”

Sheriff got a hold of his neck and tugged until they were flush fast and at least one of ‘em was panting.

“You propose to her that night?” he teased.

“Um,” Doc managed, his tongue quick over Dean’s lips. “No. Took me well on two years to do that.”

Whatever Sheriff mighta said, well, he forgot it in the hot wet of Doc’s mouth. The scrape of worn hands over his shoulders. In the sounds Doc made when Dean pushed him back in the sheets and called him _Castiel_.

It made him crazy, that name. Hearing Dean said it, anyhow. Watching his mouth turn over the syllables, the way it went all wide on the _a_ and fell narrow on the _l_. It stirred something old in him, was what it felt like, something ancient and anxious and Dean learned quick how to use it, that name. How to lick it into Doc’s ear or moan it in his face as Dean jerked their cocks in time. Made Doc go nova, fly apart like a thousand stars, when Dean used it, sighed it, sang it just right.

 _Castiel_ , Dean’d cry when he came, like the name was all that was keeping him sane.

And hell. Sometimes, maybe it was.

For all that, they didn’t fuck then. Not yet. Just found pleasure in each other’s touch, even if it were buried under blankets and draped in the hum of the night.

They were both happier than either could remember bein,’ ever, in their long forsaken lives.

No one said it out loud. Nobody had to.

Some things don’t need to be said.

Most of the town paid them no mind. Hell, most people didn’t notice anything different, other than Doc not half-living at the bar. Had their own problems, they did.

And war talk was thicker than mud that spring. Took up more space at the bar than a collapse at the mine and an aggressive band of cattle thieves running wild in the Dakotas, ‘cause all those problems paled in comparison, like, to Americans killing each other by the thousands back East. 

“It’s the War of Northern Aggression!” Simon Baylor proclaimed over every beer.

“Two children squabbling over scraps,” Mary Carney barked at every customer. “The West is where this country’s going now. Let ‘em tear each other apart, I say. We’ll make our own way.”

But Clara? She noticed, sure. Got used to coming in and findin’ them twined together in Dean’s bed: Doc’s head on Sherrif’s shoulder, Sherrif’s hand pressed possessive on Doc’s back. She washed the sheets without commentin’ and kept her smiles to herself.

Oh, how that woman loved bein’ right.

**

In July, it got well on too hot to breathe in Sunrise.

The new deputy, he got plenty of experience fast. Helped Sheriff break up a fight at his daddy’s stables between the Parson, no less, and Mary Carney, who the Parson claimed had been messin’ with his horse, a charge Mary vehemently denied, thank you very much. Using her fists.

Sheriff weren’t sure how throwing punches and horse shit in equal measure was gonna solve the problem, exactly, but between he and James, they got it settled down soon enough.

Took a week to get the smell outta the jail, though.

Doc weren’t too crazy about Sheriff’s deputy at first. Grumbled about it at every chance he got.

“He’s acting like a goddamn peacock with that badge you gave him,” he huffed over Seraphim’s flank. “I don’t think subtlety’s really his forte, ya know?”

Sheriff snorted and patted Sera’s nose. “I don’t need subtle. I need somebody I can trust, somebody who won’t let the goddamn town burn down should I dare and leave it for the night.”

“You goin’ somewhere?” Doc said, suspicious. 

Sheriff just grinned. “I am. And you’re goin’ with me.”

“Oh, I am, am I? And wherein exactly are _we_ going?”

Sheriff winked. “Nowhere just yet. But you’ll see.” He dropped his voice. “And trust me, Cas. You’re gonna like it.”

He grinned as Doc’s face flashed red, then pissed, then curious as hell, all in the span of one breath.

And Doc held those contradictions on tight, kept ‘em in his head for the next week until finally, _finally_ , Dean told him to pack a saddlebag and get Sera ready for a ride.

“I’m leadin,’” Dean said over his shoulder, Joshua snorting and dancing underneath. “Ok? And you follow.”

Doc grumbled all the way, squintin’ into the sunset and pretending he weren’t interested in whatever Sheriff had cooked up.

Dinner, it turned out. And a little ragged campsite on the far end of the crick, out on the edge of the quiet, quiet dark.

They ate shoulder to shoulder, set on a blanket Dean’d laid out in the dirt just so. Watched the sun fall away and the stars blink into bein’, one after the other and again.

It was, Doc had to admit, reluctant, kinda beautiful. Especially as the moon bloomed overhead and covered them in silvery light.

He tipped back in Dean’s arms, pushed himself tight into Dean’s chest. Dean, who sighed, locked Doc to his body and pushed his mouth into Doc’s neck.

Yeah. Well on. They were happy.

Doc drifted, let the sounds a the water and the horses and Dean’s steady soft breath lull him a little. Calm him down.

He listened, really listened to himself for the first time in a long while, and remembered something.

Another night, like this. Not with Dean, mind, or Meghan. Not a night a romance, to be sure. But another sky, another moon like the one keeping watch, and another night where he’d just—listened.

He shuddered, his skin all cold and his heart clammy.

“Cas?” Dean said, sleepy. “What’s the matter?”

Doc struggled, feeling pinned in, feeling trapped, feeling so _watched_ all of a sudden that he broke free, scuttled a few steps towards the creek still shaking like a leaf.

“Cas,” Dean said again, urgent. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

And it was in that moment, maybe, that there was a decision to be made. Two ways it all could have gone, in the end, though neither of them knew that, then.

Doc shut his eyes tight. “Dean,” he said, his voice this strangled thing. “You know I was in the Army, right?”

He heard Dean slip up behind him. Heard him hover, afraid to touch.

“Yeah. I know.”

“So. You ever hear of a massacre, up outside a Laramie? Seven years or so ago, like.”

“No,” Dean said. “No. I ain’t.”

“It were a misunderstanding, sort of. One that even kicked off a war, after a time.”

Dean’s fingers ghosted over his shoulder and Doc, he didn’t move away. But he didn’t turn around, neither. Weren’t ready to look Dean in the eye.

“I stationed at Laramie,” Doc said. “Been there for a year or so, then. Had come up from Texas—some sort of promotion, they said. From field doctor to fort doctor, you know.”

Dean curled his hand. Squeezed. 

“I didn’t want to come up here, but see I have this talent for languages, like, and the Army wanted somebody there who spoke Sioux, who could help negotiate and keep the natives friendly, they said, or some such bullshit.”

“Right,” Dean said. Just to keep him talkin.’

“So they’d send me over there every once and awhile—goodwill mission, they called it. Sending the white man’s doctor. ‘Cept I was supposed to be ‘gathering intelligence,’ they said. Getting the lay a the land by treating their women folk and making nice with the kids.” 

Doc sighed. “But I never did. Gather intelligence, that is. Just hung out with the women under the watchful eye a some warrior or six and talked. I tell ya, Dean. Those women had forgotten more medicine than I’ll ever know. They didn’t need me. But they liked talkin’ and I liked listening and it was a pretty good thing all around, even if my CO were always pissed that I never came back to Laramie with some aught ‘useful.’”

Anyway. Things went to shit, eventually. After I’d been there a year or so. Actually”—he laughed, this sharp pointed thing—“somebody’s cow went missing, believe it or not. That’s what started it. Some damn fool let his cow wander off and bam! The Army’s gotta be sent in to set everything to rights.”

He felt Dean’s arm slink around his waist and he let it go. Let himself be pinned.

“Because we had this new LT, see? This new lieutenant been sent out from East to get the Sioux problem under control, which I think was Army talk for ‘eliminated,’ ya ken?” 

Dean hummed into his hair.

“And we all ride out, the whole garrison, all horses and sabers and shit. And guns. Our fair leader, Grattan, he’s out front, even though he don’t speak a word of Sioux. Didn’t want to even try.” Doc sighed. “And he brought along this idiot trader, LaValle, to translate. Wouldn’t let me do it, even though that were the whole reason I got sent up there in the first place, right? But I kept my mouth shut and did what I was told: got my bag and my gun in my lap and rode out with the rest of the boys.”

So there I am in the back of the line, jumbled in with ever’body else, and I could see, Dean, when it all started going to hell. Grattan’s trying to talk to Conquering Bear, the Sioux leader, and whatever the fuck LaValle was saying, damn, it looked to be making things worse, so I ride up a little ways. Break ranks and slide over to hear what’s being said. And goddamn, it went even worse that quick and next thing you know, bullets are flying and men are screaming and I ran, Dean. Tucked into my horse and scurried into camp, tried to find one of warriors I knew, that I’d talked to, hell! Somebody who’d listen to reason, but it were too late.”

He made a noise that sounded like a sob and Dean pulled him tight, murmuring to him sweet. But Doc would have none of it, that comfort that Dean wanted to give.

“And the worse part was? The Sioux, they protected me. They knew me, pulled me off my horse and into a tent and kept me safe. Even when I fought ‘em, even when I begged them to let me go out and fight, they said no, Doc. It’s ok. You gotta stay.

“That night, after the battle—it was more a massacre, like they say—High Forehead, he was one of their war leaders. Wanted to kill me, too, at first. But the women—the ones that knew me, the ones I’d helped—they convinced him not to, somehow.” He blew out his breath. “So. High Forehead, he let me go out to where the men were. The soldiers that’d been killed. My garrison. It’d been hours since they’d been lying there, Dean. I knew in my gut that I couldn’t do a damn thing. But I needed to go just the same, you understand?”

Dean nodded slight. 

“So. A couple of the warriors, neither of whom I knew, they walked me out there. Wanted to follow me around. Christ. I think they were afraid I’d a run. But, hell. Where was I supposed to go? If I’d gone back to Laramie, they’d a fucking shot me on sight. A survivor where there ain’t supposed to be one. A traitor, they’d a called me. Living wasn’t bad enough; I had to go and speak Sioux, too.” 

His voice shook a little, old fears knocking around in his words. “Nah. I wasn’t going anywhere, whether my escorts left me or not. But it was damn helpful to have somebody carry a torch. Light my way through, you know. So I didn’t step on men in their dyin.’”

So we compromised: one of ‘em stood on the perimeter, holdin’ the horses and keeping an eye out. The other—his name was Grey Fox—he came with me. Held the light to show me the way. And Dean. God. It was the most terrible thing I’d ever seen. Still is. Near on 30 men, dead. Ripped apart by bullets and arrows and ax.” He shuddered. 

“The first boy we come on, he was this kid from Iowa, name a Farmer, I think. Yeah. Farmer from Iowa. He was kinda a punchline at Laramie, this little squirt who looked like he was made a paper, but damn that boy could shoot.” 

He shifted in Sheriff’s arms, fast rabbit twitch. “Anyway. So we come up on him and he didn’t have a face. Nothing. Just red and black sludge where his mouth used to be. His eyes. I only knew him for the watch on his wrist, the one his daddy give ‘em when he joined up. And the grass around him, it were soaked in blood. I mean, felt like an acre of it. This kid, Farmer, he didn’t go quick. Bled to death out there in the middle of bluebells. In God’s own country. He died scared and awful and there weren’t a damn thing I coulda done to save him, once the shooting started.”

He made that noise again, that sob, and Dean pulled him in a little tighter. Trying to remind him that he wasn’t in that field anymore, moonlight or not. That he were right there, with Dean, and Dean’d do anything to keep him safe.

“You did the best ya could, Cas,” he said. “That raid, it weren’t your idea. And you didn’t put that kid in the line a fire, either. He chose that for himself.”

Doc yanked himself away, furious, his eyes kinda terrible in the dark. “No, I didn’t do my best, Dean! I coulda stopped it. Coulda stopped the whole thing, once I saw that idiot LaValle translating so goddamn bad. I shoulda yelled at Lieutenant Grattan, told him to ignore what that damn fool was saying and put me in there, let me talk to Conquering Bear. Fuck, Dean. Bear’s a reasonable man. Smart one, too. Enough smart to make up for our own stupidity!”

He looked out over the creek, the rocks, the sky, and for a moment, Sheriff thought he was about to take flight.

“But I didn’t say anything, not a goddamn word, when just a few woulda saved 30 men. Stopped the whole fucking thing in its tracks. I should have shouted, should have fucking yelled at Grattan to shut his goddamn mouth!” He laughed, a choked snarl in his throat. “But I respected the hierarchy then. The full-on chain of command, and who’d listen to a lowly doctor, anyway? What the fuck did I know? I’d been in goddamn Texas for four years, what in the hell could I have known about Laramie, about the way things were _done_ , son, the sort of way we do it here ain’t like it is down there!”

“Cas,” Dean said, putting all the certain he could right there into his voice. “It wasn’t your fault. You did your job, the best way you knew how, given the circumstance.” He reached out and ran a hand over Doc’s back. “Sweetheart. Ya gotta stop trying ta kill yourself over shit that weren’t your doing.”

Doc didn’t turn. Kept his face to the stars, sure. But he didn’t throw Dean’s hand off, neither.

“So Grey Fox and I,” he said, as if Dean’d never spoken, “We go around to each a the bodies that was whole enough to still be a man. And all of ‘em were dead. Every single last one. And none of them died easy, either. I was covered in blood by then, just dripping with it like I’d been the one skinned, and I told Grey Fox I needed a minute to m’self. To pray.” He shook his head. “I still prayed then, Dean. Which tells you how long ago it was.”

And Grey Fox, he ken that. The Sioux, they’re more religious than most a the Christians I’ve ever met. He stayed with the bodies, right, and let me get a few paces away, out into the dark. Just beyond the light a his torch. And I get down on the ground, push my knees into the dirt, and I asked God for forgiveness, for strength, hell. I made a good long list of shit I needed from him. And nothin’ happened. I didn’t feel anything, any better. So I lift my head and open my eyes and—”

He threw his arms out wide and shouted:

“There in the sky was this heavenly host of light. This—this _angel_ , that’s all I can call it, with wings like prisms, all the colors a the rainbow trapped inside. And I look back, see if Grey Fox can see it too, but he ain’t moving. Hell, the _fire_ wasn’t moving. Ever’thing was still. Even the sounds of the night—gone.”

So I turn back, fucking terrified now, and the angel, he looks right into my eyes from all the way up there, and he says _Castiel_ , like we’re old friends or somethin.’ And I said: how do you know my name? And he looked real confused for a second, like he couldn’t understand my words. Then he said: _Castiel. Why are you here_?”

Dean frowned. “What’d he mean, why are you here?”

Doc huffed, frustrated. “I don’t _know_! I said to him, I’m here tending to the dead. And the angel, he shakes his head and says it again, like I was too slow to understand ‘em: _Castiel. Why are you here_? 

And I said: I’m here doing my duty, damn it!”

That pissed him off, I think, ‘cause he shook his wings and next thing I know, he’s right in my face, glowin’ and growling: _Why are you here_? 

And I told him the truth. Shouted at him: I don’t know! I don’t know why the fuck I’m here! If you’re so interested, God and all his angels, why don’t you give me some goddamn directions already!”

The angel, he looked real nervous all of a sudden. Flipped back up into the sky and gave me this look, Dean, I can’t rightly describe. Like I was his favorite horse who’d forgotten how to jump, or something. And then he said: _You’d better as hell figure it out, Cassie, or we’re all toast_.” 

Then: boom! He’s gone, I’m back on my knees, and Grey Fox’s got his hand on my shoulder, asking if I’m alright. Says I was screaming something in a language he didn’t understand.”

Doc swayed, his knees giving, and he pitched down into the ground. And Dean was there, a course, to break his fall. Tugged him back over to the blanket like a sack of flour, and dropped him both back down to earth.

“Cas,” he sighed, heaving Doc into his lap. “You’re the only man I know who’d lose his faith after bein’ visited by a freaking angel.”

Doc laughed, a little frantic. Wound his fingers in Sheriff’s shirt. “Dean, if there are angels, and their best goddamn advice is _you’d better as hell figure it out_ , then fuck me. I ain’t prayin’ to those bastards.”

Dean chuckled. “Can’t see fit ta argue with you there, Doc.”

“Mmmm,” Doc said.

They sat under the stars for a time, watching the moon slide higher in the sky.

“I ain’t never told anybody that,” Doc murmured into Dean’s throat. “Never.”

“Not Meghan?”

Doc snorted. “Hell no. She wouldn’t a believed a word of it. Woulda thought I was crazy. Maybe I was.”

“Nah,” Dean said, leaning back into the blanket and pulling Doc along for the ride. “Ya ain’t crazy. Ornery as all get out and kind of an ass. But you ain’t crazy.”

Doc sat up a little, showing his teeth. “You sure do talk pretty when you want to, Sheriff.”

Dean grinned. Reached up an’ shoved his hand into Doc’s hair, rough.

“You sure do change the subject quick when you want to, Cas.”

Doc sighed and turned his face into Dean’s palm. Breathed deep, leather and dirt and drink and something a little sweeter. Something that was all the kid’s own.

“What else is there ta say? I saw an angel, he was an asshole, and then I ran away.” 

He felt Dean’s fingers, his other hand, stretch out over his chest. 

“Where’d ya run to, then?”

“Didn’t have to run, exactly. High Forehead gave me a horse. Think he just wanted to be rid a me, ‘fore the federales came back. They’d a given him no end of shit if they found a prisoner there. Well, somebody they woulda assumed was a prisoner, at least at first. So he gave Seraphim—” she nickered at the sound of her name, and Doc shot her a smile—“she was just a little thing, then. And she and I, we took off that night, not too much before dawn. Just pointed her the way I thought was south and there we went.”

“Were you going for Texas?”

“Yeah, think so. Least at first. But fate, I guess, she had an eye out for me, even if the angels didn’t. Sera and I, we ended up right back here in Wyoming, didn’t we, sweetheart? Eventually.”

Sheriff slipped his thumb under Doc’s collar and petted the soft skin he found there. “Now why in the hell did you do that? When you coulda gone anywhere, hmm?”

Doc sighed and twisted into Dean’s touch. “Don’t rightly know. No good reason. Just seemed like—I was—felt right to be here, is all. Weren’t gone stay, not permanent, but then I met Meghan not too long after, and. Well.”

“You stayed.”

“Mmmm. Got my practice up and a tab running and I guess I figured I was home. As near as I’d find to it, anyway.”

“Uh huh,” Sheriff said, making the first button and reaching down a little deeper. “And you’re too damn stubborn to leave, that it?”

“Well now I got your sorry ass to deal with,” Doc grumbled, undoing the second and the third. “I can’t leave the town defenseless against you.”

Dean traced circles over Doc’s heart. “Me? What I’d ever do to you?”

“Damn well not near enough, so shut up already and get to it.”

Dean laughed, low in his chest. Shoved his mouth into Doc’s without any other preamble and made the rest a the buttons disappear. 

It got messy quick, Doc yanking at Dean’s shirt, Dean clawing at Doc’s back, both of them groaning as bits of clothing went by the wayside.

“You toss my pants in the crick and I’ll kick your ass,” Doc growled, shoving his hips up so Dean could pull the fuckers down. 

So Sheriff, he made a big show of shaking the things out and starting to fold ‘em up special, creasing them with his wicked grin, until Doc kicked him in the side and dragged the son-of-a-bitch back into the game.

“You get pushy when ya wanna fuck,” Dean said, his mouth running all over Doc’s chest.

Doc just grunted, got his hands on Dean’s head and tried to shove.

Dean laughed into his ribs. “I know where your dick is, Doc. Thanks.”

“Put your goddamn knowledge to good use, then,” Doc huffed, arching his back. “Gods, Dean. Please!”

“Hmmm,” Dean said. “That’s good. Like it when you ask nice.” He pitched up a little, cupped Doc’s hips in his hands and smiled at him in the firelight. “Right. C’mon, Cas. Ask me nice.”

“I hate you,” Doc moaned, the shiver in his hips kinda belying his words.

“Uh huh. I can tell.” 

Dean brushed his hand over Doc’s cock, and Doc’s body gave up for him, rocking up greedy, trying to get more.

“Please please please,” his stupid mouth whined. “Dean. _Please_.”

“That’s better,” Dean sighed, dropping his head. “Much better, baby, hmmm?” He flicked his tongue over the head, teased the tip, and got Doc yelling something incoherent. 

“Shhh. Cas. You’ll scare the horses.”

“Fuck the goddamn horses,” Doc tried to say, but the words got lost somewhere in Dean’s throat as the kid opened his mouth and took Doc all the way down.

Doc, now, he tried to be helpful. Tried fucking Dean’s mouth just to help move things along, you know, but Dean wouldn’t have any of it. Slapped his hand on Doc’s stomach and took his mouth away, which was well on cruel, and said:

“Be still, Cas. Let me take of ya, all right?”

“Dean,” Doc slurred, like it was the only word he could remember. And hell, right then? Maybe it was.

Sheriff took it as agreement and turned his tongue over the head until he could feel Doc straining, trying so hard not to move, to do as he were told for once in his goddamn life, and Dean, he knew how rare that was, that trust.

“Baby,” he murmured, soft. “Good. Yeah. That’s right. I gotcha.”

He took Doc in again and this time he didn’t stop. Used his tongue and his fist and the dark to yank Cas all the way to the edge, one little sigh at a time, until Cas’ mouth was hinged wide open and he were groaning so pretty and dirty that his voice kinda slunk up into the stars, wrapped itself around a few a them light and fell back down into the sheriff’s heart.

He was a romantic, was Dean.

He lifted his head, ignored Doc’s loud unhappy, and slid up Doc’s body. Kept his fist locked tight round Doc’s cock and kissed him, let him lap the taste of himself outta Dean’s mouth, let him fuck his way up into Dean’s hand until his dark head fell back, his mouth working its way around his smile, big beautiful in the moonlight as Dean growled into his face, little nonsense sounds of ownership and need and something not too far from love.

It was those that got Doc, those noises, made him shoot all over Dean’s fist, made him cut Sheriff’s name in the air and push it out through his tongue.

“Dean,” he whispered, after. “Dean.”

Sheriff kissed him again, eager and sweet at first givin’ way to rutting into Doc’s leg like a dog in heat and, no, Doc decided. That was not gonna happen.

“Dean,” he grunted, trying to get a handle on the kid. “Don’t come in your pants on my account. You gonna put that thing to good use or what?”

Sheriff’s breath blew out in a rush and Doc could feel him tremble. “What?”

Doc bit Dean’s lip and growled: “C’mon. Want you to fuck me.”

Dean snapped up like he’d been shot.

“Don’t say shit like that!” he panted, fingers fumbling over too goddamn many buttons. “Jesus, Cas. Gonna make me—”

Doc just laughed at him. Spread his legs and grinned wicked.

“Dean. Take your damn clothes off already.”

Sheriff yanked those fuckers off before Doc could say boo and then he were right back in Doc’s face, his knees shoving Doc’s apart hard.

“Don’t wanna hurt ya,” he spit out between kisses. “‘Fraid I’m gonna. Cas. Don’t let me—”

Doc caught the kid’s face in his hand. Looked right in his eyes. “You’re gonna, and that’s alright, Dean. I want you, darlin,’ and that’s truth.” He switched his hips and Dean made this tiny, frantic sound. “Now come on, Dean. Fuck me. Wanna feel you come in me, sweetheart.”

Dean’s whole body jerked and he keened right in Doc’s ear and that was all the encouragement he needed, after that.

He reared back, smeared his sticky hand through the mess on Doc’s stomach and did the best he could, trying to get ‘em both ready. Doc didn’t help things. Kept scraping his nails down Sheriff’s thighs and running his goddamn mouth—

“C’mon, Dean. Come on. Want you, I—want your cock in me, darlin’, c’mon—”

“Oh my fucking _god_ ,” Dean hissed, his fingers tangled between Doc’s legs, pushing in too fast and too hard and Doc just shoved himself into it, fucking down on Dean’s hand and saying: 

“Yes, oh—yeah, like that, Dean. Just like—Fuck! Damn it, come on! Come on come on please Dean fuck me I’m—”

And that was about all Sheriff could take a that.

He ripped his fingers away and shoved his cock in too much too fast and kept right on going through the pain, Doc screaming curses and wrapping his legs around Dean’s waist and pulling him in and in and in until they were kissing and Dean was fucking into him like there was no place he’d rather be, moaning:

“Castiel—Casti _el_ —oh my god, Castiel!” 

And Doc felt the kid’s body tremble and his skin go hot like honey and he reached up and touched Sheriff’s face, gentle, ‘til Dean got his eyes open, focused unsteady on Doc’s face.

“Dean,” Castiel said. Once, again, always. “I’ve got you.”

Dean gasped, the air kicked clean from his lungs. Drove in one more time and came hot wet and shouting, the pleasure like a living creature humming under Cas’ hands as he stroked Dean’s sides and marveled at the beauty the universe had poured into his lap, this man for whom love had surely been made. Whom he had. For Dean, Castiel decided, was a gift. One that he’d damn well earned.

Dean shifted then, got to fumbling like a colt. Tumbled to Cas’ side, laughing breathy and sweet, his hands sliding through the sweat on their skin. He leaned up and wrapped their tongues together like weeds. Got Cas purring soft as the sounds of the night scattered around them: the rush of the creek, a cayote’s call. The ache of the countryside in the dark, with no one there to fill it except them, little flicks of each other’s names spillin’ out over the rocks and tumbling off into the night.

“I cannot believe,” Cas said, afterwhile, “that we came all the way out here to fuck on a blanket in the damn dirt instead of in my perfectly comfortable bed. Or yours.”

Dean groaned. “Aw, quit your bitchin.’ You coulda seduced me just as well at home, you bastard.”

Cas laughed, and the sound danced around them, over the rocks and beyond. “I see. The big bad lawman wants sunshine and roses, huh? You gonna ask me to sign your dance card next?”

“You’re an asshole,” Dean said, flicking his happy into Cas’ jaw. “You’re just pissed that you didn’t get to fuck me.”

Cas shivered all the way down to his dick.

“Yup,” Dean said low, his mouth hot on Cas’ throat. “Yeah, Cas. That’s what I thought. Next time, sweetheart, I’ll ride you so hard you won’t know what hit ya.”

“Promises, promises,” Cas gasped, trying his damndest not to see it: Dean’s head thrown back, his knees digging spurs into Cas’ hips, his cock quick in Cas’ fist as Cas fucked up and in and oh, gods, that would be— 

“Um,” he managed. “Don’t make ‘em, I mean. Promises. If you can’t keep ‘em.”

Dean turned his head and kissed him. Nipped his way around Cas’ lips. “Oh, I can keep them alright. Don’t you worry ‘bout that.” 

“Fine,” Cas sighed, winding his hand around Dean’s neck. “Go to sleep so we can go home and you can show me already.”

“Uh huh,” Dean said into Cas’ mouth. “Sleep.”

**

Nobody saw him land, or appear, or whatever it is angels do.

For which he was grateful, ‘cause it wasn’t his most graceful entrance.

He was tired. His wings were tattered, his Grace dulled to a low shine.

But really, he thought. That was no excuse for a slovenly appearance.

So he straightened his jacket. Brushed dirt from his trousers and ran a hand through his hair.

Strode into town real purposeful-like, he did. Almost ran foursquare into Chester Bennett, who was stumbling towards the feed store in the dawnin’ light.

“Excuse me,” the angel said, more arch than ethereal. “I’m looking for a man. About yea tall, green eyes, a bit of a bow-legged swagger?”

“You mean the sheriff?” Chester said, suspicious.

“Do I?” the angel said. “Well, dear fellow. Point me in the right direction.” 

Chester just glared at him, though, and the angel fella, he sighed. 

“Right. Well. Thank you for your time, sir,” he said with a grin he did not mean, and scooted off before the hulk with a cigar could raise any sort of primitive alarm. Made for the center of town. Though that term were a wee bit generous, he thought.

“The things I’ll do to save your hide, Cassie,” he grumbled. “And the rest of the damnable world.”

Well. Safe ta say, things got a bit hairier for Sheriff and Doc, for Dean and Castiel, after that.


End file.
